


Hidden in Plain Sight

by Makioka



Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: M/M, Queer Themes, Revelations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-03
Updated: 2013-03-03
Packaged: 2017-12-04 05:08:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/706909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Makioka/pseuds/Makioka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laurie comes home to visit his mother and her new husband in their bleak house, and is given an unpleasant revelation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hidden in Plain Sight

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks kindly to Naraht for looking this over!

Laurie hadn't expected to ever miss his hospital bed for any reason, but now as he lay there in a room that could best be described as spartan--if not in furnishings then at least in soul--he found himself thinking with wistful fondness of Ward B. Certainly there had been more warmth and more cheer amongst the wounded than there was in this place of chilly austerity. He had been put in the best guest room, an oblique nod to his alienness, and well separated from the rest of the house. Despite this honour, the room was colder than he had expected--colder, he suspected, even than outside. If icicles had formed on the inside of the window panes he would not have been surprised. The grate was grey and empty; as Mr Straike had said the night before, it was rather a waste to keep fires burning in this time of need. Laurie had felt obliged to agree politely, wondering as he did so what on earth had convinced him to undergo this visit. 

 

The scented letter that was still tucked in his pocket answered that question, his mother's handwriting looping in on itself as her gentle pleas for him to visit leapt off the page. He had thought almost involuntarily of the Gareth she'd so bashfully mentioned, pondered the harsh lines of Straike compared to the flowing curve of Odell, anything to keep from a decision, weighed pros and cons until Ralph had firmly sent him on his way, reminded him that flowers would be nice and booked his ticket for him. Laurie wished he had Ralph's warm weight beside him now, curved into his spine, hand tucked protectively between them, but since the thought only made reality colder, he got up and made the bed absentmindedly. It was still dark outside--he woke early these days-- and the house breathed quietness if not peace.

 

Dinner the night before had been rather awkward. Mr Straike had been gregarious, substituting hearty laughter for good humour. He had dominated the conversation, trying with undeft hands to direct the flow into suitable channels. Rather colourlessly they'd discussed the progress of the war (undecided), the state of the programming on the BBC (patriotic, dictated Mr Straike, in a tone that ended the topic), and whether Mrs Liddell should take charge of the flower rota (Laurie had remained politely dumb on this subject). The flowers Laurie had brought wilted in quiet company with their erst-while owner, banished as they were to a jar in the kitchen. Laurie'd been thankful to escape the dining table, until he was cornered for a chat in Mr Straike's study, where Mr. Straike reminded him that he was welcome to stay as long as he wished, in the same space as he made plans for returning him as soon as possible to Oxford. He of course had been a Cambridge man, and the word Oxford in his mouth took on a faintly unsavoury tang, redolent of silk trousers and cheating at croquet.

 

"Plenty of girls there these days I hear," he'd said. There had been a thread of derision running through his voice, as though Laurie and his foot would fit right in, and Laurie had bitten his tongue to prevent from pointing out that girls were not an article Cambridge was deficient in. "Catch yourself a nice young bluestocking," Mr. Straike had added almost archly, both the words and the delivery strangely dated. Laurie's mother, who had just entered the room with a tray, raised her eyebrows as though just on the verge of thinking about being disapproving. 

 

Now Laurie pulled on another jumper, blessing Ralph's forethought. He padded downstairs, first to the kitchen. Then, feeling a pang of guilt as he saw how low the tea-caddy was, he forewent the tea and headed instead to the study-cum-library to pick himself out a book to pass the time until the household stirred. He wasn't a pry by nature, and had no interest in the desk and its contents. He skirted around it instinctively, revolting against the precise order of the pens and the inkwell, the book of sermons that sat so firmly and squarely in the middle, as though to officiously remind casual passerby that here, obedient to the church it lay. 

 

The books that lined the shelves were equally worthy, equally dull and Laurie with inborn instinct understood rather swiftly that they had mostly been bought by job-lot at auction, most of them never opened once even if they did present an imposing appearance. He remembered Aunt Olive telling him that Straike was the youngest of four brothers. With increasing desperation he ran a finger along, trying desperately to find something that was neither stolid nor moralising and failing completely. About to give up hope, he saw a slim volume that looked as though it might be poetry, wedged between two volumes of Gibbon's Decline and Fall, and tugged it out. 

 

It was a battered and stained copy of In Memoriam, Tennyson embossed in gold print on the cover, and a memory faintly stirred in Laurie's mind of telling Reg that he suspected Straike's tastes ran to Tennyson. He wouldn't have chosen this as his first example though. He flicked open the book however, wondering that Straike, who kept himself almost as neat as Ralph, should keep such a ragged example of a book, cheap and flimsy enough, and, judging from the faintest layer of dust, not picked up in a very long time. Inside in faded ink, dated 1917, was scrawled handwriting. It had probably been hard enough to read even before time had taken its toll.

 

Dear Gareth,

In memory indeed of what we shared.

With the kindest of wishes

Francis

 

Simple words and brief, the words perhaps of a man grateful to his chaplain, but old buried instinct stirred in Laurie, sharply rising at the faintest call in the distance. Beneath his fingers the paper was rough, and the book exuded a faint scent of the sea when he brought it closer in search of he barely knew what. The faintest sound outside the door, and his head shot up, arrested in the middle of half-forming thought, uncertain and unset yet beginning to coalesce within his mind. Mr Straike stood there at the door--somehow, absurdly, Laurie had never dreamed of calling him Gareth, and seeing it written down had done nothing to engrain it. They remained there, frozen for long seconds, Straike in his pyjamas and thick sensible night-gown, face sleep-creased and bewildered as he looked first at Laurie and then at the slender volume in his hands. Something in his eyes shifted imperceptibly, and Laurie felt the last pieces click into place. He breathed in, and felt the cold strike the back of his throat, knew that Straike had seen the realisation in his eyes.

 

Straike came in, hesitant for once, bluffness stripped from him in an instant, and Laurie couldn't help but despise him for a long second. "I think this is yours," he said coolly at last, proffered the book, still open at the flyleaf. Once again the 'Gareth' caught his eye. He remembered his mother's looped letters shaping the same word, over and over, and felt an unaccountable sickness rise to his throat. Still he held the book out, fingers chilling as he waited for Straike to reach out and pluck it from his grasp.

 

When it was gone, he let his hand fall back against his side, slide into a pocket for the sake of warmth, as again they stared at each other. Straike was retreating already, regrouping his men, reassembling his line of defences. "How odd you should find that Laurie," he said, "grateful chap gave it to me while I was chaplain in the last war. You met an awful lot of different people back then." His mouth gave a nervous twitch of a half smile that died almost immediately. "It wasn't all leading services, you know, giving comfort was an important part of the ministry." 

 

Anything less comforting than this, Laurie would be hard put to imagine, and he edged towards the door, away from the terrible spectacle that confronted him. 

 

Straike was still there, eyes raking his face, in search of what Laurie didn't know--affirmation perhaps, understanding that he didn't have to offer, perhaps a terrifying dawning hope implicit in the loose hands, and abortive tiny movement that he made towards Laurie, as though for a second he assumed the courage to try. Perhaps that courage failed, or the look in Laurie's eyes made itself entirely clear. Either way he turned to the wastepaper basket and dropped in the poem. 

 

"Awful old thing," he said, almost without a tremor. "I can't believe it stayed so long." Then as though regretting his hasty action, as though some flicker of compunction existed, he bent and picked it up. "It'll do for lighting the fire," he said, and Laurie swallowed back his revulsion. "I suppose you young men don't study Tennyson at Oxford these days," was the next conversational sally he attempted, heavy and leaden, the laborious effort involved evident.

 

"No," Laurie said shortly. "Us Oxford young men don't."


End file.
